How to Care for Color Treated Natural Hair

Are you like me and love a little color in your hair? Throwing color into your healthy hair journey can be a slippery slope.

It can be so hard to keep it moisturised, right? But as much as I love bleaching my hair, I’ve tried a lot of different things to make sure my hair stays nourished through it all. I’m sharing my best tips in this post to grow long, healthy, natural hair even with hair colour.

My Healthy Hair Journey with Color Treated Natural Hair

I think there’s a lot of pressure on naturals to not do anything to our hair in order to truly call it natural. Never wear a blowout, never bleach your hair, don’t use too much heat.

Where’s the fun?! I’ve done it all to my hair and then some because I like to switch things up. You can definitely have long, healthy natural hair without following all the rules. That said, you want to at least adhere to the bare minimum. Below is my version of that.

Night Twisting or Protective Styling

Me with a twistout after wearing my hair in twists all week.

I get it because I certainly DO NOT have the discipline to twist up my hair every night. I try to twist my hair on a Sunday after wash day and keep those twists in all week but if I take them down any time before? Child please, retwisting ain’t happening.

On those nights, I try to pull my hair into a puff on top of my head then satin wrap or bonnet. Retwisting is GOAT though if you have the time to do this at nights. Spritz the hair with a mixture of oil, leave in conditioner and water and do 5 or 6 big twists for a chunky look or more twists for more definition.

Deep conditioning

This is a must for me because I have bleach in my hair and will probably be bleaching it forever X_X. The average person should still try to deep condition natural hair at least monthly but if you’re having a moisture issue, amp that up to bi-weekly until you’re satisfied with your routine and feel you can drop it back.

Clarifying

If you’re like me and avoid shampoos, only using conditioner to cleanse the hair weekly, then you will have a bit of buildup. This leaves your hair dull and not responding well to your favourite products. Time to get rid of all that gunk with aclarifying shampoo.

A DIY option is rinsing your hair with a mix of organic apple cider vinegar and water after co-washing. This will get your hair squeaky clean and shiny and restores your hair to its natural pH balance, ready to absorb leave-in conditioners and stylers.

Those are my basic tips for retaining moisture on longer hair. It’s really easy with shorter hair, I simply co-washed in the shower more often or sprayed with water to refresh. Spraying with water brings a whole different set of problems for my longer hair. Do you have any tips to add to this list?

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